Riot Games shrinks the 2XKO team and cuts staff in publishing

Riot Games has let go of staff for the second time this month. Sheep Esports reported on Thursday, February 26, 2026, that the company had made a new round of cuts across its publishing teams, a round that a Riot spokesperson confirmed to the trade outlet Game Developer. It follows the reduction of the team behind 2XKO, the fighting game Riot released on January 20, which the company announced on Monday, February 9.

The two rounds are different in kind. The first was announced by Riot itself, in a post signed by the game's executive producer, with the reasons and the terms offered to the people leaving. The second was never announced: it came to light through reports, and Riot's only public word on it is the spokesperson's description relayed by the press. For anyone who works in the competitive scene around Riot's games, or hopes to, the month sets out what a publisher says when it shrinks a team, and what it keeps.

Riot Games, posts of December 5, 2025 and February 9, 2026; The Esports Advocate, February 10, 2026. Days counted from January 20 to February 9.

What Riot told the 2XKO team

The post of February 9 is titled An Update on 2XKO and is signed by Tom Cannon, the game's executive producer, the person who leads its production. It says Riot is reducing the size of the team. It does not say how many people are leaving or how large the team was before. Sheep Esports, citing a Riot spokesperson who spoke to outlets including Game Developer and IGN, puts the cut at 80 employees, roughly half of the team working on the game.

The reason it gives is about players, not about money. Riot writes that after the game expanded from PC to consoles, it saw consistent trends in the way people played it. The game, in the post's words, has found a passionate core audience, but its overall momentum has not reached the level needed to support a team of this size over the long term. The Esports Advocate, which reported the post the same night, quoted Cannon telling staff that the decision had not been taken lightly.

What stays is a smaller group. According to the post, a focused team will keep working on key improvements to the game, some of them requested by players, and Riot says it will share some of its plans soon. No date, patch or season is attached to that promise.

The timing is the striking part. The game launched on January 20 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, as a free-to-play title in which players fight in pairs, two against two, The Esports Advocate notes. The announcement came 20 days later, eight days after the last day Riot had set for the first Major of its competitive season.

What the people leaving are offered

The post sets out two forms of support, in a fixed order. First, Riot says it will help the people affected, whom the company calls Rioters, look for other positions inside the company where that is possible. Where it is not, it will provide a minimum of six months of notice pay and severance.

Both terms need a word of explanation for readers outside the industry. Notice pay is the salary owed for the notice period, the time between the announcement of a dismissal and its effective date, paid even when the employee is not asked to work it. Severance is a separate payment made when employment ends. Riot's post groups the two under one minimum and does not split it between them, so the share of each is not known. Six months is a floor: the post says a minimum, and the terms of each person depend on their contract and their country.

The internal route comes first in the post, before the payment. It is a promise of help in looking for a position, not of a position: the post says where possible, and makes the payment the answer for everyone the company cannot place.

A second round, in publishing

The second round reached the public in a different way. According to Sheep Esports, the news first circulated on social media during the night of February 25 to 26, and Game Developer confirmed it a few hours later after a Riot spokesperson responded to its questions.

The spokesperson's description, as Sheep Esports relays it, frames the cuts as part of small team-by-team changes involving a limited number of people. Riot has published no post about this round, and the spokesperson's comment, as reported, gives no total.

Publishing is a different side of the company from the development of a game, and Sheep Esports names no game in connection with this round. The outlet reports that the cuts affected publishing teams in several of Riot's offices around the world. It does not say that esports staff or any team running a league were among them, and the spokesperson's comment, as relayed, does not mention esports.

The game behind the first cut

2XKO did not arrive on launch day without a history. The game entered early access in October 2025, a phase in which players can play a game before its full release while the developer keeps working on it. In its December 5, 2025 post on competitive play, Riot counted more than 1,500 community tournaments held around the world since early access began, 22 of them sponsored by the company under a program named First Impact.

Those tournaments are not Riot's. They are run by independent tournament organizers, known in the scene as TOs, and Riot's guidelines allow events of every size, from local brackets to large majors. The players and organizers of that world call it the FGC, the fighting game community.

Riot built its plan for the game around that culture rather than against it. That choice is why the February 9 post spends as much space on tournaments as on staff.

Why the Competitive Series is unchanged

The post is direct on competition. "Our plans for the 2026 Competitive Series are unchanged," Cannon wrote, as printed by The Esports Advocate. Riot adds that it remains committed to working with tournament organizers and local communities, and that it will keep its focus on the events and organizers that already power the fighting game community.

The plan in question dates from December. Riot said then that it would not create a league of its own and would instead support existing fighting game events directly. The 2026 Competitive Series is made up of 20 tournaments sanctioned by Riot: five Majors, described as the five biggest competitive moments of the year, and 15 Challengers, regional open tournaments that give local communities more chances to compete. The year is divided into five in-game seasons, each with one Major and three Challengers.

Sanctioned events receive three kinds of support, according to the December post: funding, promotion on Riot's official channels and additions to their prize pools. Part of that money was tied to the game's store. Riot introduced Frame Perfect, a set of competition-themed skins, the cosmetic outfits players buy for their characters, and said a portion of the proceeds would go to tournament organizers, for prize pools and for the cost of producing events. It did not say what portion. The set was to be sold during the first season and to return around each Major.

The first Major, Frosty Faustings, was set for January 29 to February 1, 2026, according to the December post. The cut of February 9 therefore came after the dates of the first of the five, with four Majors and the Challengers of the coming seasons still ahead.

What changes for people who work in the scene

For the staff of the 2XKO team, the post is the whole of Riot's written record: the reason, the support offered and the fact that a smaller team continues. For the people affected by the second round, the public record is shorter still, a spokesperson's comment relayed by the press.

For the competitive side, Riot has drawn a line between the development team and the tournaments. The organizers who run 2XKO brackets do not work for Riot. Their events are their own, and the publisher's role in the series is to sanction, fund and promote them. The post commits Riot to keeping that role for 2026.

Outside the series, the guidelines leave a wide field open. They set no monetary threshold or limit on prize money, entry fees or sponsorship agreements, ask only that entry fees stay reasonable and give fair value, and allow streaming on any platform, though not on linear television, meaning scheduled broadcast channels. Organizers may not suggest that Riot or the 2XKO team is directly involved in their event, and a list of sponsor categories is closed to them, gambling, tobacco and political campaigns among them. Riot keeps the right to intervene at its sole discretion, up to shutting an event down.

For players, nothing in the two rounds changes the calendar. The sanctioned events, the seasons and the prize pool support are the same as before February 9, according to the post.

What comes next

Riot has announced two things for the period ahead, neither with a date. A smaller team will keep working on improvements to the game, and the company will share some of its plans soon. The competitive season continues on the structure set in December, with four Majors still to come after Frosty Faustings.

On staffing, Riot has said nothing further. Its own posts give no figure for either round; the 80 jobs at 2XKO come from a spokesperson's comments relayed by the press, and the second round has no statement beyond the spokesperson's description. The next public word on the game is the promised update on its plans, which, according to the February 9 post, will come from the team that remains.

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